SNOW HILL — The mystery continues with the former Silas “Jack” Hill property, though a key document has been discovered.

Arlena Hill LaBon, 106, has been trying to get back what she says is her land, now owned by Robert Exum Jr.

But her lawyer, Lonnie Carraway of Snow Hill, has found a deed of conveyance dated Jan. 18, 1935, where a tract of 108 acres and two additional tracts of land foreclosed for nonpayment of 1927 taxes. They were sold to Josie D. Exum for $350 on the Greene County Courthouse steps.

Actually, it was his wife who bought the land once owned by LaBon’s parents, Hill and his wife Patsy.

LaBon claims Exum, who ran a general store in Snow Hill, defrauded her father by overcharging for goods, and then took the land as payment.

“It’s a disgrace and a shame the way people was doing,” she said.

However, there is still a glitch. Neither Carraway nor LaBon’s nephew James Hill, who has been doing research through the courthouse and Raleigh archives, can find documents showing the property has been divided.

“I can’t find where that 250 acres was split,” said Carraway, who has been working on the case for about two months. “... I feel like that 108 (acres) is part of the 250 acres.”

Hill said that without documents, it appears the land wasn’t legally divided. But some of the court books were destroyed in a fire years ago.

LaBon said the land had been purchased by her great-grandfather, who passed it on, undivided, to his and a slave’s two children, William Edwards and Edith Edwards Hill, LaBon’s grandmother.

“It had a mortgage,” James Hill said. “It seemed like the mortgage, like my aunt was saying, was satisfied.”

There was a later mortgage in which it was unclear whether it had been satisfied.

Hill said he found documents showing that Exum attempted to get a quick claim deed on the Hill property with Edwards in 1972, but they didn’t know the property wasn’t divided.

He said the taxes were being paid by the Edwards. A portion of the property — 102.44 acres — is currently in Calvin Edwards’ name.

“Calvin Edwards’ dad had the land surveyed in 1951,” Hill said, adding it was still listed as one tract of 250 acres.

A parcel of 126.83 acres that adjoins the Edwards propery currently belongs to Exum Jr., of Fayetteville. Exum did not return a phone call.

LaBon recalled the property to be on Browntown Road, but Hill said U.S. 258 was Old Browntown Road. The Exum and Edwards tracts are actually accessed from Greenridge Road, but extend back almost to U.S. 258.

One of seven houses still remains on the property and was occupied up until at least 15 years ago, according to Snow Hill resident and relative of LaBon, Robert Britt, and Susie Schertzinger, who owns a horse stable next to the Exum tract and in front of the Edwards tract.

Schertzinger recalled the “friendly” man, who had worked for Exum Sr. and had lived in the house for a number of years until he died. His name was Herbert Battle, Britt said.

Schertzinger said she had wanted to buy the property because Battle had maintained it so well with flowers and plantings.

“It’s really beautiful back there,” she said, describing it as “sacred” when Battle took care of the property. Today, the abandoned house is overgrown and falling apart.

Exum Sr. let Battle stay in the house, just as he had let LaBon’s parents stay in their house until her mother died.

Mike Edge, head of Greene County Family Researchers, wrote an email saying certain facts he has discovered contradict LaBon’s memory of how things took place. He said LaBon’s grandmother appears to have moved around quite a bit and “legal importation of slaves into the U.S. ended in 1808,” well before her white great-grandfather bought the land.

“I have looked at all the census reports for this family, from 1870 through 1940,” he wrote, “and each census states that Silas “Jack” Hill owned his own land and worked for himself. I can believe that something did happen between Mr. Hill and Mr. Exum over land, but that’s a legal question. The facts that I have seen do not support the story she tells about her family.”

Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.